Originally published in Loud Fast Rules! issue #2

An interesting aspect of interviews is that it’s impossible to predict exactly how and where it’s going to go once the conversation takes off. A writer can put as much effort into the preparation and execution of one interview as he can the next, but put two transcriptions side by side, and chances are you’ll find each to be vastly different from the other. Despite the interviewer’s research, depth of knowledge about the subject, and ability to steer a dialogue in interesting directions, the success of the interview rests mostly on the shoulders of the interviewee.

Over their 15-year existence, Electric Frankenstein has been one of the most frequently interviewed bands in the independent music scene. This gave me plenty of research material to sift through, but little hope that there could be many stories or interesting bytes of knowledge left for guitarist Sal Canzonieri to pass on that hadn’t been told before. Plus, isn’t doing interviews a drag for these veteran musicians? You can only take so many of the same questions before you become jaded, right? Considering my premonitions, I approached this interview with much skepticism.

Fortunately, I was entirely wrong. This interview with Sal, conducted in June of 2005, was one of the most enjoyable I’ve ever done. From comic and poster art, to horror movies, to magazine editing, to 30 years of martial arts training and guitar playing, his interests and areas of expertise range far beyond what one might expect. His detailed explanations about how EF helps out smaller labels and unestablished bands, and how they’ve gone about recording and releasing albums is a testament to the ever-evolving nature of DIY. Plus, Sal tells some of the best tour stories I’ve heard yet.

Electric Frankenstein’s new album, Burn Bright, Burn Fast, was, according to Sal, “recorded like a Led Zeppelin album, but played raw like punk.” Paid for by their own fundraising efforts (inspired by the horror movie-making process), EF entered a series of studios to lay down their grittiest and yet most professional-sounding record to date. Composed entirely of their best unheard songs from the past 15 years, the new record is out now from TKO Records. If that’s not enough for you, they also have their own book of poster art available from Dark Horse Comics, and a back catalog of records and CDs available from…well, it might be easier to list the labels they haven’t worked with…

In my research I discovered that Electric Frankenstein actually have their own book of poster art, published by Dark Horse Comics. Though I’ve seen anthologies of band-related poster art before, I’ve never seen one dedicated to just one band. I thought that was really cool, and I was wondering, how did you get involved with Dark Horse?
Well, a lot of different people knew that I was accumulating all that art over the years — plus, they saw the record covers — and we just had fans all over that worked at all these different place. Lisa Petrucci — she owns half of Something Weird Video — she talked to them [Dark Horse] and recommended that they put together a book. See, I already had put a book together, and I had a lot of different publishers already wanting to put it out, but she had talked to Dark Horse and [told them] that they should [publish] this because there’s so many different kinds of illustrations in there, and it’s more up their alley. So, as soon as they saw the rough draft of it, they were all excited.

It was [originally] a much bigger book — half of it was my band, half of it was everybody else’s poster art — so the second half is going to come out separately, and I’m putting that together now. It’s called A Fistful of Rock and Roll.

I saw that you were the editor — or as they list it on the Dark Horse website, the “orchestrator” — of the anthology, and I know you have a background in art, so I was wondering how long you’ve been involved professionally in the art world, and what your background might be — school, the work you do outside of Electric Frankenstein, etc.
Well, now I’m mostly a writer, but back when I was younger I went to commercial art school for a few years. You know, that’s technical stuff — they teach you how to do technical things, but you have to be able to draw in the first place! I’ve always just been an artist — drawing, painting…coloring (laughter). Since I was four! I was always doing that stuff. My band before Electric Frankenstein was called The Thing, and we were known for our fliers. I made all our fliers — this is in the ‘80s — and a lot of people were collecting our fliers. I’ve been involved that way, and I’ve done [work for] fanzines, the covers for fanzines, and posters and stickers for different bands during the hardcore days.

Any zines that people might be familiar with?
I did stuff for Adrenaline OD, Bedlam…I did the cover of Flesh and Bones magazine once…all ‘80s hardcore.

Are there any contemporary artists who you’re a fan of, or any who you might like to work with for future EF records?
It’s hard to find somebody I haven’t worked with! (laughter) There’s at least — I don’t know — 500 posters now! Boy, I think I’ve worked with everybody, really! (laughter) My favorites I’ve worked with — Alan Forbes, Coop, Kozik, John Dietrich, Art Chantry, Mark Arminski — everybody that’s well known has already done stuff. There [are] some obscure poster artists from 10 or 20 years ago [who] I’d like to work with — they didn’t do that Xerox junk, they’d actually draw really cool cartoons for their posters. Those are people I’d like to work with, people from a long time ago.

You were saying you admire the people who did cartoons on the fliers, rather than Xeroxing. I suppose, today, the people who do cartoons on the fliers are in opposition to those who are just doing things in Photoshop and cutting and pasting images off the Internet.
Yeah…there’s a big debate all the time [between] illustrators and designers. The designers will say, “I can do anything an illustrator can do,” and then the illustrator says, “That’s just photocopying — big deal!” so they just argue and fight all the time. I prefer to illustrate. The kind of stuff that I like that isn’t illustrated, that’s done the other way, is when it’s a real shocking picture. Like the comic called Print Mafia, they just take wild photos from who knows where, and they put it on the poster, and it’s jarring! That makes sense. It’s real “punk” looking, they do it the old-fashioned way, all silk-screened to make it look like it’s old.

I’ve never done silk-screening before, but I’d like to.
People get hooked on silk-screening posters, they really like it. It’s like tattooing, it becomes addictive. The smell, the paint, the inks…

You mentioned before that you’re doing a lot of writing, which is something I wanted to touch on. What’s your [writing] background, and what publications do you currently write for?
Background? That just comes from going to college. I went to university; I was a behavioral science major and I had to write a lot of research papers, so that’s where I really learned how to write well. Then, after that, I did little fanzines that came and went, but the most [well-known work I’ve done] was when I was editor of Exit magazine, the famous magazine from the ‘80s. It was kind of a rebellious art magazine. I was the editor and wrote articles — research articles — for them, and then also did art for them. And, since I was the editor, with the publisher I’d put the issues together. And then I wrote for Seconds magazine, interviewing bands — it was another ‘80s magazine. It was a big newsstand magazine; it was real big for a long time. Like, everybody had to be in that magazine! Then I wrote for Normal magazine, a guitar magazine — I did an interview with the Misfits for them.

Now I have a monthly column in AMP. And then Loud Fast Rules! is the other magazine they’re publishing; I’m going to be doing a column in that one. It’s going to be more punk rock and roll-oriented.

A good, appropriate place for your writing.
The column in that one is about the whole “rip-off” of the music scene, and it’s a column for bands — how to do everything, from day one, without getting screwed!

Basically, you’re going to be culling knowledge and material from your years of experience being in bands to help out the younger kids.
Yeah, well, I spend a lot of time convincing bands to break up and to go away, so that way only the good ones are left! (laughter) And for all the good ones, I’ll say, “well, only you’re allowed to read this, and this is how you do it!”

Are you strictly a journalist, or do you venture into creative writing, too?
Fictional writing? No, no. I’m a real big fan of Philip K. Dick and Harlan Ellison, and Kerouac, of course, and William S. Burroughs, but I never did fictional writing — I’ve always been a research person. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, I do a lot of writing for martial arts magazines.

Yeah, I’ve read that in addition to your creative outlets, you’re into martial arts. I actually interviewed Chet Weise from the Immortal Lee County Killers a few months ago for Verbicide, and he’s into kickboxing. We discussed how martial arts can help keep a person both physically and mentally in-check, and how that state of mind can influence your creativity and your music. Do you feel that your involvement in martial arts carries over into your rock and roll?
Oh yeah—it gives you the stamina to be on stage; I mean, it’s been 15 years with Electric Frankenstein alone, and I’ve been playing [in bands] since 1975! There’s that, and there’s being able to keep your head together when all kinds of bad things start happening when you’re on tour, which easily happens! Between the promoters…who need to get their asses kicked (laughter)…and a lot of times I’ve needed to protect myself [at shows].

I remember the first time in San Francisco where these drunks tried to pull our instruments out of our hands while we were taking them downstairs to a club from the van. They tried to steal them from us, but then the guys in the other bands grabbed the instruments from their hands, and I beat up all three of them in about five or six seconds (laughter). One guy, he flipped over, landed, and vomited. Another guy I just turned around and punched in the face so fast it knocked him out, and I jumped up in the air and kicked the last guy in the face. Then we went on stage and I wasn’t even breathing hard! The rest of the band, they had all their adrenaline going and were breathing real hard, and they’re like, “You did all the work, how come you’re not…?” (laughter) I mean, we were supposed to play like a second later, and I’m like, “Well, what do you think I took Kung Fu for all those years for?”

A lot of times, in Southern California, a bunch of Nazi skins will come to the shows, and they get into fights with other people, and I’ll jump off the stage and stop them a lot. I just got back from Europe, and there were a lot of fights there. There are all these Nazis…one show I fought the Nazis because they were beating up the black people in the audience.

And that was happening in Southern California, or—?
No, that was in France. And at another show in Germany, there were 15 people trying to fight and I knocked them all down, stopped them from fighting. Everyone was beating up the skinheads and they weren’t even doing anything! They weren’t Nazi skinheads, they were just kids, regular skinheads. But all these people were beating them up and hitting them from behind, and there was blood everywhere, and people were falling into the stage, and girls were getting their ears ripped…it was a big mess! I was like, “Well, alright…” It was the only show on the whole tour where there was a band [playing] after us, you know? They only got to play one and a half songs before it turned into a giant mess! But me being into Kung Fu, there was a guy getting choked under a table, he was all purple and the guy wouldn’t let go, so I gave him a neck pinch and made him pass out (laughter). He let go. And I picked people up and threw them over my shoulder or threw them outside…

You make it sound like you’re describing a Jackie Chan movie.
Well that’s what it was like! And everybody else in all the other bands that were playing that night were standing up on top of chairs, against the wall, getting away from everybody — I mean, this was a big brawl, the whole place was fighting! And I just walked around and knocked everybody on their asses and stopped the fighting.

The only way you can stop two people from fighting is to knock them both down. It was effortless. The guys in the Swedish band we played with [that night] started calling me “Morphius”! (laughter) It’s some character over there…they said they could see me walk very slow, taking my time, and just touch somebody and they would fall over! I would just hit people at the right point and they’d go “boom!”

Nice! Sounds like a good tool that a lot of bands should take advantage of.
Well, yeah, Kung Fu is about stopping a fight. A regular fight is like, you know, you’re both breaking your hands, breaking bloody noses, and you could get killed. You use martial arts and you can totally neutralize what the other guy is doing, and neither one of you gets hurt. I could really hurt them if I wanted to—but I don’t.

And even in that aspect, I even used [Kung Fu] to save someone’s life on tour once. This truck smashed into a car that was in front of us, it was a convertible Jeep, and it flipped over two or three times. It was a girl, and she was hanging upside down. Her face had slammed into the ground, and there was a big pile of blood and teeth…she was out. She was hanging upside down from the safety belt, so who knows if her neck was broken, you couldn’t take her out. The car started catching on fire, so I ran underneath to her, and shut off the engine. All I could smell was blood and perfume, and, like, her whole top had pulled off from the safety belt, so her breasts were in my face and it was so weird…she had long blonde hair, and I look and her face is just smashed on one side. Then I realize she’s not breathing anymore…so I had to think fast, you know! I couldn’t give her mouth-to-mouth, there was just a lot of blood. So, suddenly, I was like, “Oh, I know what to do!” and I hit a pressure point in her leg that’s connected to the lungs and it made her gasp really hard, and all this garbage popped out of her mouth, and then she was breathing and actually moving her arm around, trying to get up. I had to run back under her, and whisper in her ear to accept it, leave it alone and don’t move, because we didn’t know if her neck was hurt or not. So half and hour later the police and doctors arrived…they told me she would’ve died if I hadn’t done that.

Wow!
Her lungs would’ve filled up if I hadn’t.

You know, I’ve been doing interviews for quite a long time and running a zine for six years, and I usually don’t ask that “got any good tour stories” question, but I don’t think anyone could go wrong asking you! That is intense! So [regarding] your involvement with martial arts, you’re specifically into Kung Fu?
Yes, that’s what I have a black belt in, and I also teach, once a week. And I go into New York to work with my teacher; it’s Chinese martial arts. The kind of Chinese martial arts I do is called Shuai Jiao. It’s the art of takedown, you just touch somebody to feel the balance point and it throws them down. It’s kind of like with Japanese Jiu Jitsu or Aikido, but it’s 5,000 years old, this style. It’s the oldest martial arts style; all martial arts styles come from it. I do that, and I do something called Long Fist [Chang Chuan], and I know Shao-lin, and a whole bunch of other stuff.

How long have you been doing martial arts?
Well, I started guitar the same year I started Kung Fu, so that would be 1975. Been doing both a very long time.

I mentioned before that you had martial arts in common with Chet from the Immortal Lee County Killers, and I believe another similarity is that you are both in bands that have worked with Estrus Records. You’ve worked with Estrus, right? They put out an EP?
Yeah, yeah.

However, I don’t think that any band out there has quite the track record Electric Frankenstein has for the amount of labels you’ve worked with, and I’m wondering, just how many labels have you been associated with in the past 15 years?
I think 40! (laughter) I don’t know…I know 40 different distributors were distributing our music, that way at least one of our records is in any record store all over the world. I mean, people in Taiwan, Vietnam, they’ve told me they’ve found our records. Labels…I guess I’d say about 30. But most of them are small!

I believe in people who do things for themselves. It’s really about the people who are self-made, like I am. That’s how I consider myself. I work with labels that are built up on their own, who work hard and really care. I’ll put out singles…a lot of labels we know, they want us to do singles to help their labels, to get known more, and that’s what it did, it worked out really [well for them] and they sold a lot of copies, and then they were able to sign a lot of other bands that they wanted — and I wouldn’t say they used us, but they told me they wanted help, so you know, that’s what it was for.

It’s cool when you hear about bands that will give back to labels trying to get their feet wet in the industry, or at least break even on a project! What are the benefits, and at the same time, what are the downsides of working with so many different labels?
Well, the benefits, you can make sure that your albums are out all over the world. And lots of new people find out about you, constantly. Especially when you do split singles; I’ll do lots of split-singles with local bands. The bad part is…the reviewers all complain about it! It’s mostly the magazines that make a big problem out of it. The fans don’t — our fans collect them, so they love it. I always make sure the record covers are great. The fans are happy to have them…it’s just mostly the magazines; why do they even care that we have 50 albums or 50 singles? It seems like the first thing they always gotta say, like it bothers them. I mean, we’ve been together 15 years, what do they think I’m going to do, write a new song once every three years? I don’t understand; if you love music, you work on it, and if the demand wasn’t there, then I wouldn’t be able to put anything out, right? No label would want to put out our stuff; I put out a single once every three months, to be fair.

Well it’s a two-for-one thing; [fans of Electric Frankenstein] are really into the music, but they’re also into the art, and everything is a collectible; whether it’s a limited edition single or a huge press run CD through Victory Records, you know you’re going to get something unique in both music and artwork. So you’re now working with TKO Records — how is that going for you?
I really like them. Mark is like the best person in the world…[he] really cares about what he’s doing, and he’s real sincere, and that’s all I really care about at this point in time, to work with people like that—[we] don’t have to put anything out anymore. His enthusiasm for what we do, and his caring about what he does makes it “for real,” you know? You feel that you want to go the extra mile for them.

Are there any labels you’ve had problems with?
Oh yeah, of course, Victory. If I had known what I found out after I worked with them, I would’ve never signed with them — I mean, they did help us get a lot bigger…

Yeah, I found out about you guys when I was 18 — that was ‘98 — through Victory.
Right, through Victory, but then they didn’t do anything for our next record. They just couldn’t care less. They went on to other things, and the only reason they put out the second [EF record] was so that nobody else could. It’s not because they wanted to.

It’s been a while since volume eight in the A Fistful of Rock compilation series that you organized was released [on Victory Records]—
It’s up to [volume] 12 now.

But they’ve not been released through Victory?
No…you know, they haven’t paid me my royalties in years, and they don’t even send me my royalties statements.

I tried to find information online about the compilations, and all I could find was that the last volume on Victory Records was volume eight. What label did you move on to for the last four volumes?
Oh, it was Devil Doll who put out nine through 12. Devil Doll Records.

Are they a Jersey label?
No, California! They’re a big label. They have a lot of bands on their label. See…(laughter) that’s why I don’t want to volume 13 with them! I took back the rights to all Electric Frankenstein stuff, and all my Fistful stuff, and I’m gonna reissue everything through somebody else — TKO is gonna reissue everything of [Electric Frankenstein’s], and I’m looking for a label to reissue all the Fistful of Rock comps, all 12 volumes. And I have a 13th one, and it’s all done and ready to go — it’s a three-CD set, because it’s the last one. Then I’m going to do a second series called A Fistful More, like the Clint Eastwood movie series, A Fistful of Dollars and A Fistful More of Dollars. Each volume of Fistful of Rock I put famous bands, not-so-famous bands, and totally unknown bands together — who are all equally good; I just think people should know about them all equally. So I work really hard to get everybody else to find out about how great they are, and I try to help these bands get started.

I was wondering, could you tell me about the new Electric Frankenstein full-length, Burn Bright, Burn Fast? Specifically, I read on the TKO Records website that it’s a collection of music that you’ve culled from years past…
Well, what we did is, way back, even in the beginning when we were getting started, we always thought about [the future]. We never wanted to be one of those bands that lasted 15 minutes and then were gone. So whenever we wrote our albums there’d be a song that we’d pick as our best one, and we’d say, “let’s save that for later when we’re more known!” Because we liked everything, we were confident that all of it was good. So we just took the best one and kept it on the tape.

It’s going to be our 15th anniversary in October, but last year — during our 13th year — when we were recording the record we said, “Hey, let’s go back to the tape and listen to everything.” We still liked almost all of it, we just fixed everything based on what we do now, change this part, or that part was a little too long, that part’s a little too short, you know — re-did them until they were the way we liked them, and then recorded them all.

Oh, so you did rerecord them; I didn’t know if it was stuff that was taken from the vaults, recorded years ago.
No, they were never recorded, they were all on demo cassettes. We had this cassette that we kept adding a song to every year — everything we considered our best songs that we didn’t want to give away yet!

So why now?
We just picked the number 13 because it has to do with horror films and stuff (laughter). We said, “when it’s our 13th year, we’re going to do that,” and we did. And we’re getting a lot of great reviews on this record, people really like it. The thing we did differently, too…I didn’t want to do anything typical with this one, so we did a whole bunch of things that’ve never been done before. I went and sold ads on this CD to all the companies that we like, that we’re friends with, and we did it like a horror film is made, where it’s all sponsorship money put together and that’s how they make their film. I based everything on how they made Evil Dead.

I go to all the horror and film conventions, our band plays at them, and we used to work at them when I was younger, so I got to know all these different people from all these films. I’ve always asked them how they made them. So everything they did — they’d make the poster first, so that’s what we did—we went out and got Basil Gogos, the guy who did all the famous monster magazine covers in the ‘60s, and he did Rob Zombie’s record cover, and the Misfits, and all that stuff. So it only makes sense that we’d be the next thing for him to do — especially since he’s 80 years old! We got him to do the front cover, we got Neal Adams, the famous artist from the 1960s and all the Marvel and DC Comics, he did the back cover. And Johnny Ace did all the inside stuff.

So we did all that first, then worked on the music! We promoted it like a film is made. Then with the money we’d made, we put it all into the recording, which…we made about $25,000 in a few days, which was crazy, but if I’d known I would’ve worked on it all year and made millions! (laughter) But with that money, you know, we were able to go to a giant studio, and we did like 20 tracks just for the drums — I wanted the record to be not a typical punk record, so it’s recorded like a Led Zeppelin album, but it’s played raw like punk, so it’s like a blend of rock and punk.

And that studio you mentioned, that’s in New York, or Long Island?
No, it’s in Jersey…once we recorded an album in New York at what used to be the Head Factory — that was our first album. All the basic tracks were recorded at HarariVille and then the overdubs we did locally, where we always rehearse and record all of our singles. That had never been done before; totally changed the whole business model of doing that. Then, because of that, I own the rights to the record now — no one owns the masters but me.

I went and got the label I want to put the record out, TKO, instead of being forced to do it with whoever has enough money to pay for getting it done — that’s why we wound up on Victory. So now I don’t need anybody anymore. I mean, I totally changed the whole way that bands do business. If Metallica or anybody else who’s a lot bigger than us did the same thing, they’d probably do even better, and they wouldn’t need to be on any label, they could do it all themselves the way we did. So it totally breaks all the rules, we did something that’s not been done, between that with the songs, and the way the record was recorded — like a super-professional, major label-style recording — but I didn’t make it “slick” and everything, but I just used the giant, major label studio.

It’s 56 tracks on there, 20 mics just for the drums, there’s like 10 for the guitar, 10 for the vocals — it’s huge sounding; you put it on loud and you can hear it real clear, the drums sound like they’re right there. When he hits the snare drum or the tom, you can really hear the space all around the drum. And everybody else is doing lo-fi stuff, so we’re like, “Let’s change things! Let’s show what we can do with ingenuity, and not needing a major label to do anything.”

Sounds great! It must be a really nice, secure feeling to be in a position where you are able to do things like that.
Yeah, all we’re relying on TKO to do now is make sure they sell! (laughter) It’s the press! You need a lot of interviews and things like that. I know from playing since 1975 that really the only way a band really does well is through interviews — reviews, people don’t care.

And by playing, of course.
Well playing, yeah, but a lot of people who’d never found out about you, I mean, they don’t know you, and you have to sell your CDs first! More people buy your CDs than go to your live shows. That’s how it always is, because all over the world, people are [going to be able to buy] your CDs.

Knowing how many times you’ve been interviewed, I don’t really want to ask about “who your influences are,” but I am curious, as of 2005, what newer bands you might really be into.
Well, the Wildhearts I always listen to, no matter what. There’s a band called the Crank County Daredevils, they’re really good. There’s like this whole, new kind of “sleaze rock” thing going on…it’s like hard rock and punk — like us, kind of — but more towards the Motley Crue [sound]. You know, because the ‘80s “thing” is in instead of the ‘70s thing. So there’s Ironhead, who I produced their album — and it’s coming out in June on Heatslick Records in California. There’s Spread Eagle from Canada, Broken Teeth, Crank County Daredevils…it’s a whole new scene of punk rock-Motley Crue! (laughter)

So what do you attribute that to? The Darkness? (laughter)
Well, you know, they’re influenced by us, and the stuff they grew up on! They’re younger than me, so they grew up on the Motley Crue stuff, instead of the ‘70s stuff. That only makes sense. Then there are bands that are really great — there are a few bands that I think are the best in the world right now. There’s a band from England called Clams and they’re the greatest, I mean, their music is amazing. It sounds like early Led Zeppelin mixed with Kyuss, Alice in Chains, Mudhoney, Wire, and The Cure.

Whoa. From Alice in Chains to Wire…that’s all over the board.
Yeah, it’s really original sounding! There’s also a band from Canada called Nasty On and they’re really original, too, sounds like Gang of Four meets the Sex Pistols, a little bit of Nick Cave…I mean, it’s definitely rock ‘n roll, punk, but with a whole [different] influence with the Nick Cave and Gang of Four sound — again, ‘80s influence, instead of the ‘70s. And then there’s a band from New York that’s great called Drag Citizen, and they sound really powerful — more like a fun ‘70s rock band, like early Cheap Trick and Alice Cooper, that kind of stuff. Then there’s a great band from Sweden called On Parole; they’re like Misfits meets Corrosion of Conformity, they sound great. Ironboss from down in Maryland, they’re really powerful.

I like a lot of stoner rock, too — and you know what’s weird? There’s a big stoner rock encyclopedia, and there’s five pages about [Electric Frankenstein] in there! What are we doing in there? We have five pages in there, three pages in the heavy metal encyclopedia, there’s a hardcore-punk book that has two or three pages on us in there. There are a whole bunch of books that have us in them, but it’s weird, every book is a completely different style! They all consider us “their style,” and that’s fine with me, because that’s the whole “Eclectic” Frankenstein thing…

Well, a lot of people obviously identify with Electric Frankenstein, but you’ve created something new — I’ve read a lot of your interviews and you call [your music] “high-speed rock ‘n roll”—
“High-energy.”

Right, “high-energy rock ‘n roll,” and whereas many people would try to pigeon-hole themselves into [some category], you’ve thrown something out there that’s new and you leave it up for interpretation, for people to latch on to.
We wanted to create a whole new sound, something that didn’t sound like other people. The way that Led Zeppelin or Yes or Kiss played, if you play like that, it’s obvious that you’re copying them. And that’s not what we wanted to do. Now, we’ve done CDs and we’ll be out somewhere, and someone will say, “Listen to this! It sounds like they’re covering you!” (laughter) Like they just changed the lyrics…even Turbonegro ripped us off.

So [Electric Frankenstein is] touring this summer, but then what? Songwriting, new record for TKO, etc?
Let’s see — we just got back from Europe, actually, we were there for a month…going to Texas this weekend to play, then in July we’re going to Spain.

So after that, are you guys all ready to start banging out new songs?
Ah, no, after that I want to take it easy from writing, because we’re booked up through the end of the year, and there won’t be any time to do anything. We did one single for Coldfront Records that’s not on the album; we recorded just for them after the [full-length] album was done. And then, what I’m doing right now is I’m having lots of meetings with companies that want to make Electric Frankenstein “stuff.”

“Stuff?” Like merch?
There’s a company that wants to make Electric Frankenstein toy figures, and I’m going to be doing a DVD with TKO probably next year — instead of an album next year we’re going to do a DVD of all 15 years worth of shows. Like, the songs from when we first started — probably our very first show, at a horror movie convention — and you can’t see me in it, the guy who filmed it did it so that all the amplifiers and the PA system is right in front of me from where he’s standing! And you can’t see me through the whole set! [The DVD] is going to be a retrospective of everything. That will be coming out next year. The year after that, I’m doing a “best of” album, but it’s going to be cartoons of the songs — it will probably be a DVD.

That is going to be awesome.
Yeah, I’m gonna have all different artists draw the lyrics, cartoons of the lyrics. Either it’s going to be a video CD, or a DVD — depends on how much space it needs. Then in between I’m just doing tons of merch meetings, because all these companies want to make a lot of stuff. I’m thinking, there’s one of those really big merch companies that do everything for all the major label bands, they want to take over our whole thing. So I’m thinking I’m actually gonna do it, because I have no time left anymore for my life! Because the band is full time.

And it seems like you’re diversifying your efforts and going so many different ways, it’s not just playing music and writing songs and recording CDs, now you’ve got all this visual stuff going on, the retrospective, merch, and touring on top of that — it’s a full time job and a half!
It’s too much!

Anything else of note happening for EF?
Well, I almost forgot, there’s a guy doing a book about Rik L Rik and that time period, and there’s a whole chapter about Electric Frankenstein because he did an album with us before he died. There’s a whole chapter about us, and our history, and how we tie into the whole California [scene]—because it’s about Rik L Rik and California punk, because he started it! He had the first California punk album when he was in F Word, and basically he’s the inspiration for everybody. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing if it wasn’t for him — and I didn’t know he was the same age as me! I mean, all of us were buying his records when we were in high school — we didn’t know he was a high school kid like us! (laughter) We always thought he was an older person, and when we finally met him when we covered one of his songs — and he came up on stage in California, when we toured there — we were like, “Hey, wait a minute, you’re the same age as us!” When we were kids we thought [he was older because] he had such a deep voice! He was like, “No, I was born in the same year you were born…”

I’m not sure I know much about Rik L Rik.
Well, he was part of the Germs and all those bands — F Word was first, then the Germs came, and he was friends with Darby Crash, and then [in] the movie about Darby Crash they interviewed Rik L Rik…and he died right after that. He had a brain tumor and nobody knew. He didn’t know either… He was also in Negative Trend — after he left they became Flipper! He had his own album, that Beach Boulevard, a lot of solo songs. Anthem kind of songs, in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s he was a big deal.

Interesting. A lot of times you’ll know about bands, but know so little about their history and the people in them.
You know, what’s weird to me is that somebody your age…I mean, I grew up on ‘60s garage bands, all the ‘70s stuff — from the original “hard rock ‘70s” to the “punk ‘70s,” the ‘80s hardcore, the ‘90s grunge…I was there for all of that. And then for people who are a lot younger, that [music] is stuff that they’re just finding out about or hearing about it — they’ll like new stuff, but they don’t know where it comes from! For all the younger people, punk was just here when they were born! For us, for people like me, it came from us doing it — creating it.